Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with
seraphim. The city
drags itself awake on
subway straps; and
I, an alarm, awake as a
rumor of war,
lie stretching into dawn,
unasked and unheeded.

--Maya Angelou, Awakening in New York, 1983

Maya Angelou, the great author and poet and activist, has died. She was 86.

Texas P.I. Bill Dear once posed as a doctor to try and get O.J. Simpson's son's medical records.

The story about a Texas private investigator's new book claiming that he has proof O.J. Simpson isn't guilty of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman is getting the kind of media buzz you would expect when someone makes a claim as absurd as "O.J. didn't do it."

The book's author is P.I. Bill Dear, and this is actually the second time he's attempted to use a work of alleged non-fiction to let the world know that Jason Simpson, O.J.'s son, is the real killer.

We spoke with Dear over the weekend. Read all about it here. The story about his new book has since made its way to the Huffington Post, US Weekly, and an assortment of other national media outlets. What none of those media outlets mention -- and, frankly, we didn't know until after writing our post about Dear yesterday -- is that he's basically been maniacally stalking the younger Simpson for the last 17 years.

In 2001, Dear pimped his first book blaming O.J.'s son for the murders (he published the book himself). It was titled O.J. Is Guilty, But Not Of Murder, and it just so happens that Voice editor-in-chief Tony Ortega penned a 7,200-word article detailing Dear's creepy -- probably illegal -- methods of stalking Jason Simpson while Ortega was working for what was once the New Times Los Angeles. Ortega'spiece was titled O.J. Confidential; Texas private eye Bill Dear spent nearly six years and $1 million trying to pin
the Bundy murders on O.J.'s son Jason. But his theories stretch credibility and
his tactics stretch the law.

​In the nearly 18 years since the brutal murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, we've all -- as a planet -- collectively come to the general consensus that O.J. Simpson murdered two people, and that's likely because he did of the mountains of evidence pointing in his direction (the blood, the glove, more blood, etc., etc., etc.).

However, Texas-based private investigator William Dear -- whose book (natch), O.J. Is Innocent And I Can Prove It is being released today -- tells the Voice that after investigating the murders for nearly two decades, he can now prove that O.J.'s son Jason is the one who got away with murder, not the Heisman Trophy winning running back.

We spent about 40 minutes speaking with Dear yesterday, and while he didn't convince us that O.J.'s innocent, his arguments aren't too far beyond the realm of possibility.

​We haven't decided which is funnier: the fact that there's a book called How To Roll A Blunt For Dummies!, or that a tutorial on something most 15-year-old weed enthusiasts learn how to do in about five minutes is 128 pages long.

Well, there goes your dream of living like Truman Capote, or at least in his former dwelling. The Brooklyn Heights home where Capote wrote his novella Breakfast at Tiffany's sold for about $12 million, an amount that constitutes what the Daily Newscalls the "highest price for a single-family home in borough history." Holly Golightly must be impressed.

Today in "Traditionalists Hating Technology," local literary darling Jonathan Franzen, author of the popular novels Freedom and The Corrections, has come out in opposition of e-books. Speaking at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, Franzen told reporters that he believes the impermanence of the e-book format will eventually result in fewer great works of literature.

They have overdosed on coffee, written on layovers in Canada, traveled from the Netherlands, put pen to pad on a packed tram headed to Roosevelt Island, and made time for writing even after dealing with a parent's heart attack.

The global writing initiative, also known as National Novel Writing Month, challenges participants to write a novel of at least 50,000 words during the month of November every year. Now that December is here, participants have collectively exhaled and some are even plotting to have their novels published--much to the dismay of critics.

St. Mark's Bookshop vs. Cooper Union: the saga continues. A few days ago we reported that Cooper Union, St. Mark's Bookshop's landlord, had refused to lower the store's rent from $20,000 to $15,000 a month.

Remember the crazy Times Square billboard announcing Jeffrey Eugenides' new book The Marriage Plot? How could you forget. And how could you forget Jeff's glorious vest, blowing in the wind as the author strides purposefully towards you.